Mike Cook’s Top 10 Church Excuses

“Today something terrible happened to me. I sat down on a toilet that had the seat left up by a careless male; me. In 34 years on this planet (for nearly 17 of which I have habitually used a toilet) I have never done this. Truthfully, I had always wondered why women got so upset over the issue. But, as I plunged asshole-deep into the ice cold drink and felt the sting of freezing water kiss the back of my sack, I came to terms with the treachery in not replacing the seat to a down position. I’m now working on a livid bruise that doubles as a tramp stamp and am conjuring the courage needed to admit I was gang raped by germs. In fact, the smearing of my fresh butt cheeks down the inner bowl not only left my ass covered in enough bacteria to cure ebola, but made it to number one on my short list of “gross shit I shouldn’t ever do again” and I’ve accidentally drank my own piss while camping.

All I can think to say to women everywhere is;

I’m really really really….SORRY.”

This is the post by Mike Cook that made him famous. In addition to receiving thousands of likes on his own Facebook page, someone screencaptioned it and it went viral, receiving millions of views.

Mike Cook is known for several things; one being this post as well as his weekly Sunday church excuse. This book is an interview with Mike Cook featuring a selection of his writing and of course, his top 10 church excuses.

“Hey Mike, do you want to join us in church today?”

No thanks. I’m gonna give myself a second circumcision with tightened fishing line instead.

That sounds spellbinding. It really does. But I’m gonna perform a DIY colonoscopy with an unlubed cobra instead.

That sounds like a righteous good time, but I’m gonna help my great grandma hand-wash her vibrator collection instead.

That sounds enticing. It does. But I’m gonna shave my nuts with a chainsaw instead.

I would love to. I really would, but I’m gonna get my face tattooed by Michael J. Fox on speed instead.

That sounds stellar. It does, but I’m gonna eat a bowl full of dinner forks and bend over in front of a magnet instead.

That, seriously is on my to-do list. It is, but I’m gonna eat the sushi I found in the dumpster behind Planned Parenthood instead.

That sounds amazing, but I’m gonna compete in a cocaine smoking contest against Charlie Sheen instead.

That sounds like a thrill ride. It does. But I’m gonna get my cock pierced 9 times by a narcoleptic on heroin instead. Thanks though!

Mike was kind enough to sit down with us and do an interview and give us a glimpse inside his mind.

Jon D. Webster: Were you always an atheist?

Mike Cook: I never really had a de-conversion experience. I thought religion was garbage at a very young age. As far back as I can remember. I specifically recall testing the theory by asking the devil to snuff my asshole neighbor when I was 5. He remained alive and I remained unconvinced. I lied to my family about believing for many years after, until finally starting to speak out against it in my 20s.

J.D.W.: When did you first discover that you had the ability to write and that people responded well to your writing?

M.C.: When I was a kid. I used to write things out when I was sad, or angry. I didn’t use passable grammar until I was an adult, but I was always pretty good at expressing myself and translating what was in my head to paper. We actually used paper in those days. I would read all of Jim Morrison’s poems and try to be as detailed and esoteric as he was. I read the dictionary, in search of new words and more precise phrasing. I never told anyone about it and just kept it locked away. I was very angry and rebellious. My mother used to tell me I was the type of kid she wouldn’t want her kid hanging out with. This continued well into my 20s.

J.D.W.: When do you find you are most creative?

M.C.: After about 3 IPAs, or on hallucinogens. One pill of ecstasy used to bring pages and pages of usable material. It wasn’t clean work, but it was very detailed and secretive.

J.D.W.: What do you think you are most known for on Facebook?

M.C.: My humor, as a broad generalization, but #terribletoilet was what got everyone reading. Kind of odd being known at the guy who fell in a toilet and accidentally drank his own piss while camping.

J.D.W.: Did it surprise you when it went viral?

M.C.: Yes. I knew it was relatable and funny, but I never suspected it would be so widely accepted. Even the soccer moms were scrubbing the profanity from it and sharing it on their pages. That taught me that relatability was everything to a writer. Painting a picture in their mind.

J.D.W.: Out of everything you have written, both on Facebook and not, of which piece are you most proud?

M.C.: #littledanny I wrote that in 45 minutes and it said exactly what I wanted with almost no editing. My tribute to my dead friend, Mary was second. I suspect they thought funny was all I could do before that.

J.D.W.: Could you elaborate more on what happened with your tribute to your friend?

M.C.: A lady I had been visiting and giving pot to had slipped and broker her neck and died. I couldn’t process it, so I got out my keypad and wrote what I was thinking. They had it printed and framed at her funeral. It was read aloud to the audience of family and friends. It was a small funeral, not many ears in the crowd.

J.D.W.: Why did you leave Facebook?

M.C.: Because I cannot stand political rhetoric and propaganda. It’s just a movie for us to watch and feel in control. We have no more control. It’s been eaten up by giant, worldwide corporations. Everyone is waiting for a politician to come and save us, but that’s like waiting for a prison guard to come and free us. They just use catch phrases that tested well in focus groups to tell us what we want to hear. No matter their good intentions, the system is inherently corrupted. The one problem with democracy is that good ideas still require the approval of complete idiots. Opposition just needs to be big and well-funded, it doesn’t need to be right, or just.

J.D.W.: When will you return to Facebook?

M.C.: Soon. It’s hard being away. I get so many private messages from disappointed people. Some have routines around my Sunday posts. They miss me, I suppose.

J.D.W.: After the election is over or before?

M.C. Probably before. I blocked some of the most whiny and pugnacious. They can rattle off their propaganda elsewhere, my page is for fun.

J.D.W.: Thank you for your time.

We’d like to thank Mike for the interview. Below are two examples of Mike’s best work: the one he is most proud of, and his tribute to his friend, Mary.

#LittleDanny:

Today, I was almost sexually assaulted in a convenience store parking lot on my way to work. Right now, having familiarized yourself with my posts, you think I am joking. No. It’s true. But the jokes are coming. Hold the fuck on.

Tucking my purchases away and exiting the store I encountered a 5 year old named Daniel and his mother, she read the paper and sipped coffee by their bikes, Daniel was roaming about, expeditiously. Daniel was 5 and likes dinosaurs. His parents call him Danny. I know all of this because, in 13 seconds, prior to any formal introduction, Daniel told me such. He asked for my name. Apparently, Daniel is now displeased with talking to a stranger.
“Mike.” I tell him.
“Can I tickle you?” He asks me. Quite nonchalantly, as if approaching large, tattooed, strangers in quiet parking lots for a morning tickle is just like bumming a cigarette in Daniel’s circles. Daniel is not known for his couth. He cuts right to the chase, a real go-getter. Daniel is not old fashioned.
“What?” I ask him, with squinted eyebrows and open mouth, looking around for Chris Hanson and his film crew.
“Can I tickle you? I’m really good at tickling.”
I talk to all kids in the same manner; like adults, with mental retardation.
“I’d rather not be tickled, dude.” I manage, still a bit confused over the whole awkward affair.
The entire time his mother is casually perusing her newspaper with blatant disregard for the potential kidnapping her child is willingly soliciting in the early morning parking lot of a Plaid Pantry, tucked away in an otherwise busy city, in mountainous northwestern Oregon. I turn to her, tell her Daniel is not shy and ask if it bugs her that her son is so willing to whore out his tickles to large older men in parking lots. I was not so verbose, though.
“No.” She gave me shrugged shoulders and an insouciant demeanor. “They never let him tickle them.”
Oh. Duh. This has happened before. More than once. Daniel needs help.
Let us not forget, this is a true story.
I typically live by the axiom that one should never let approaching strangers tickle them in parking lots, I have always said that, but I decide to lend Daniel a little trust. I tell him he can tickle me once, but then I gotta go. I’m thinking that the ribs are most common. That’s what I’d do. Daniel will painfully grab my ribs and I will head off to work. Daniel will be happy. If he shifts gears on me, I never lose fist fights with children. I’m proud of that.
Daniel’s eyes lock on to his target. They publish something horrible. I know his next move. Daniel is about to betray my trust. Daniel is an animal. I am correct.
Daniel reaches straight for my dick.
I am appalled or flattered. I don’t know. It all happens too fast for me to think about. Daniel takes what he wants. I’m not okay with how fast this relationship is escalating. I’m going to duck this unwanted cock squeeze. I’m putting a stop to this.
Luckily, I am faster than a child. If not, I’d be doing 20 years in a maximum security prison with paperwork that I could not show the guys in the yard. I managed to land his little rapist fingers on my leg. I am a lucky man. I don’t have to register as a sex offender. Daniel’s mother has traded her insoucience for concern, laced with embarrassment. Now she wants to be a mother. She apologizes and tells him not to grab people like that. I agree. I feel violated. Daniel is unconcerned. Little monster.
I give him a reluctant high five and tear off to work. I need to take a shower. I feel like a whore. I once trusted the innocence of childhood. Daniel has taken something from me. I leave, happy to be alive. This is still a true story.

I will never forget this pair. The careless mother, whose name I do not know, allowing her child to assault me in this shaded entry of a convenience store by my house. Her offspring, Daniel, who she calls Danny, liker of dinosaurs, fondler of men, lurking around the parking lots of Plaid Pantries and reversing the tides of child predation with an aggressive revolution, forever redefining the terms of child molestation, at least, in my mind.

Mike’s tribute to his friend, Mary, which was read at her funeral:

It is 2am and I have been alone in the night, softly crying into the hollow darkness. This isn’t going to be funny, but I don’t know who else to talk to.

Mary was in her 70s and lived in unit 29, across the lot from me. She was a tall, leathery woman with soft eyes and a softer heart. Her voice seemed to crawl through gravel on the way out, had it not been so unassuming, it would likely be abrasive. You could tell right away she was the negotiable grandmother, though wild in her youth. The endless parties long behind her, altruism had petrified her into something better than all of that.

Her face told several stories, most of them good, all of them worth hearing. Her stories were one-of-a-kind, too. The timeless saga of the 60s rambler. The drugs, the love, the nonchalant talk of universal vibrations and capricious landings of stoners and nihilists. Mary was once all of these things, in her day. I have known her 6 weeks.

Mary recently had hip surgery. I met her when having a beer with the apartment’s management. She was very kind and I took to her immediately. I was told of her surgery and her love/ need for pot. It was an important part of her lonely days and I am a fucking fountain of weed. I will never grow rich by the small amounts I yield, but an ounce means nothing to me. Most potheads east of Colorado would sell their soul to dip into my cure-jars with such wanton frequency. To Mary, having spent so much on taxes from the dispensaries, I was surely a gold mine.

Such things can be openly discussed amongst adults in the colloquial gatherings of Liberal, West Coast utopia.

It’s legal to give weed to an adult here and the elderly stoners in my area have a certain place in my heart. The ones that just smoke a little can get stoned when they feel like it on just a few grams a week.

I lose that on my floor. It grows on trees and this is not lost on me. In my eyes, giving people weed is not about spreading the weed, it is about spreading the idea.

She asked if she could buy grams from me and I laughed at her, told her I didn’t want her ten dollars.

“I grow weed just so I can smoke all the weed I want. I think of it like you think of tomatoes. If all you need is grams… you can have them. I have some laffies you can have, too. I’ll just GIVE you an eighth every week if you want. You’re my neighbor, anyhow.”

Mary was on board with this idea. No arguments, all shrugs.

For all 6 of the weeks I have known Mary, I have given Mary weed. An eighth per week for the first 3 and (Mary soon realized giving her a few grams was like giving a neighbor a beer, to me) a quarter and 5 edibles for the last 3. I’d hang out for a few and roll a joint and smoke with her. She tried hash-oil and I thought I had killed her, but she hung in there with feigned enthusiasm and a hot grumble in her throat.

“It’s tasty,” she rasped, one thumb up, in a voice like she had Marlboros and sand for breakfast.

These were the hijinks of Mary.

I cared a lot about Mary and it meant a lot to her that I cared so much about some, nice older lady’s pot needs. It made her life better and cost me nothing. She was 50 meters from my doorstep and she had no money. It was an easy decision.

I tried telling her that, but it didn’t change her opinion on the matter, nor her appreciation.

This morning, while camping with her daughter, Mary fell, broke her neck and died. I have heard the story and wish I hadn’t. The thought of Mary laying there on the ground dying is killing me. I imagine her fear and the cold realization of drifting into the great quiet, the suffering, the wondering of what will come of her grandchildren.

I had just talked to her about her dreams for the future, her grandkids, her hopes for her daughter. I cannot cope with the idea of somebody so sweet dying like that. I am elbow deep in my sixth beer and I cannot stop. I do not want to stop. I cannot shake this. Never in my life have I felt this because only in my last ten have I stopped shooting heroine long enough to even entertain an emotion. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, there is nothing I can do for Mary. Nothing.

The helpless plight of people, when juxtaposed to the violent whim of reality, is too much. I hate that I can do nothing. I hate, so much, that I can do absolutely nothing.

All I can do is quietly cry to an unconcerned, unlit, vanilla room and tell a few hundred people about Mary and how great I thought she was.

Jon D. Webster is the author of five books. 10 Decisions I Could Have Made Better Than God: And Other Audacious Atheist Articles, Nothing Sacred: An Atheist Quote-A-Day Calendar, Blasphemy: Atheist Quotes and Essays By An Apostate, One Big Joke (And 300 Shorter Ones), and Unreal News: A Collection of Satire can be purchased through Fastpencil.com. He has also written for publications such as the Modesto Atheism Examiner, Unreal News Online, Guardian Liberty Voice, and Back Room Knox. Jon has been featured on The Pink Atheist, Road to Reason, Freethought Forum, The Freethought Radio Hour, Atheist Analysis, and Reason TV. He has a Bachelor of Science in Theatre and Communication Arts and is working on a Masters Degree in Applied Psychology.